sorry, thought it would open per the bing sequence above
https://www.ft.com/content/2a6ec6aa-492e-4e7d-85f8-83789a2bc481

Top US pension fund aims to juice returns via $80bn leverage plan
Calpers hopes bold move will boost efforts to achieve its 7% return target
John Plender in London and Peter Smith in Wagga Wagga JUNE 14 2020

Calpers is to move deeper into private equity and private debt by adopting a bold leverage strategy that the $395bn Californian public sector pension fund believes will help it achieve its ambitious 7 per cent rate of return.
In a presentation to the Calpers board, Ben Meng, chief investment officer, said the giant fund would take on additional leverage via borrowings and financial instruments such as equity futures. Leverage could be as high as 20 per cent of the value of the fund, or nearly $80bn based on current assets. The aim is to juice up returns to help the scheme, the largest public pension in the US, achieve its growth target.
The move comes after a 2019 investment strategy review that found Calpers needed greater focus on the excess returns potentially available from illiquid assets compared with public equity and debt. Under Calpers’ previous asset allocation strategy it was estimated to have a less than 40 per cent probability of achieving its 7 per cent return target over the next decade.
Calpers’ assets represent just 71 per cent of what it needs to pay future benefits to the 1.9m police officers, firefighters and other public workers who are members of the scheme.
The US stock market slide this year has increased the long-term structural problems across the entire US public pension system, particularly for the weakest plans that have ballooning unfunded liabilities. The weak funded position of these funds poses a huge long-term risk for millions of US employees and retired workers.
Mr Meng hopes Calpers’ deeper push into illiquid assets over the next three years will help it exploit its structural strengths. Its perpetual nature allows it to make longer-term investments, while its size gives it access to top managers in private equity markets where performance is widely dispersed.
“Given the current low-yield and low-growth environment, there are only a few asset classes with a long-term expected return clearing the 7 per cent hurdle. Private assets clearly stand out,” Mr Meng said. “Leverage will increase the volatility of returns but Calpers’ long-term horizon should enable us to tolerate this.”
He added that leverage would not “be tied to any specific strategy, asset, fund or deal”.
Mr Meng has terminated relationships with more than 30 external fund managers since 2019, redeploying $64bn of capital with savings of more than $115m in annual fees. Holdings of global equities are now 95 per cent internally managed, while 80 per cent of the total fund is managed in-house. It invests in more than 10,000 public companies.
Mr Meng has faced criticism this year for abandoning a hedging strategy for tail risk, the risk of low probability but highly costly events, before the market crash in March.
He countered that Calpers had developed ways of raising cash at short notice to meet unexpected demands on the fund, an approach that was less expensive than high-cost hedging strategies.
Calpers’ portfolio has also been de-risked by increasing its holdings in longer-dated US Treasuries and switching more assets from capitalisation-related equity indices to factor-weighted equities. These use indices that focus on investment styles such as price momentum or volatility.
According to Mr Meng this strategy protected the fund from losses of $11bn in the pandemic-induced market slide, which far outweighed the $1bn profit forgone on tail risk hedging. He said that unlike in the financial crisis of 2008 Calpers was not forced to sell assets into a depressed market in March. “Too little liquidity can be deadly but too much is costly,” he said.

@Catch22. Try the go around below. Article: "Top US pension fund aims to juice returns ... "
Bing

I am looking to build a municipal bond ladder with target date ETFs. I am wondering if there is any opinion on BulletShares versus Ibonds. The differences I notice are BulletShares has lower volume, lower assets, higher yields, higher durations, and higher expenses.
BulletShares: average volume about 1K-10K, expense ratio 0.18%
Ibonds: average volume 10K-60K, expense ratio 0.10%
For both, the longer maturity target dates tend to have lower volumes
I am not sure why, but the yields are consistently higher for BulletShares despite the same average credit quality. BulletShares s tends to have longer effective duration for the same target year. I think BulletShares might have more callable bonds (but their yield to worse still is higher than Ibonds yield to maturity)
BulletShares 2023: Effective duration 3.3 years. Yield to maturity 1.87%, yield to worst 0.84%
Ibonds 2023: effective duration 2.8 years, Yield to maturity 0.52%
BulletShares 2026: Effective duration 7.2 years, Yield to maturity 2.79%, yield to worst 1.79%
Ibonds 2026 effective duration 5.4 years Yield to maturity 0.9%
Part of me says take the better yield and since I plan to hold until the last year don’t worry about liquidity, but part of me says this is too good to be true and maybe Guggenheim’s bond pricing methodology is artificially boosting their yields, or they are taking excessive duration or call risks on callable bonds. Any input would be appreciated.

woohoo, woohoo
https://www.ft.com/content/2a6ec6aa-492e-4e7d-85f8-83789a2bc481

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1027596/000089418920004600/oshaughnessy497eliquidatio.htm
497 1 oshaughnessy497eliquidatio.htm O'SHAUGHNESSY 497E SUPP
O'Shaughnessy Small Cap Value Fund
Class I: OFSIX
Supplement dated June 15, 2020 to
Prospectus dated November 28, 2019
O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC, the Advisor to the O’Shaughnessy Small Cap Value Fund (the “Fund”), has recommended, and the Board of Trustees of Advisors Series Trust has approved, the liquidation and termination of the Fund. This decision was made due to the unfavorable economies of operating a small fund with no realistic prospect for future growth.
The liquidation is expected to occur after the close of business on July 27, 2020. Pending liquidation of the Fund, investors will continue to be able to reinvest dividends received in the Fund.
Effective June 16, 2020, the Fund will no longer accept purchases of new shares. In addition, the Fund’s Advisor will no longer be actively investing the Fund’s assets in accordance with the Fund’s investment objective and policies and the Fund’s assets will be converted into cash and cash equivalents. As a result, as of June 16, 2020, the Fund will no longer be pursuing its stated investment objective. Shareholders of the Fund may redeem their investments as described in the Fund’s Prospectus. Accounts not redeemed by July 27, 2020 will automatically be closed and liquidating distributions, less any required tax withholdings, will be sent to the address of record.
If you hold your shares in an IRA account directly with U.S. Bank N.A. you have 60 days from the date you receive your proceeds to reinvest your proceeds into another IRA account and maintain their tax-deferred status. You must notify the Fund or your financial advisor prior to July 22, 2020 of your intent to reinvest your IRA account to avoid withholding deductions from your proceeds.
Please contact the Fund at 1-877-291-7827 or your financial advisor if you have questions or need assistance.
Please retain this Supplement with the Prospectus.

@FD100
you may have told us before but how do you avoid redemption fees on some of these funds?
Congratulations on establishing your system that seems to work almost all the time. How much work does it take to evaluate incoming data daily or hourly and trade so frequently? Sounds close to a real job to me

I do pay commissions sometimes but I try to buy Instit shares because I have an agreement to buy them at Schwab with fees waived. Selling is always free because Instit shares don't have short term fees. Several funds have their own short term fees and why I don't buy them. Even if I pay fees they are negligible when I make thousands.
It takes me just minutes every week for my portfolio because I have all the lists I need to see momentum and looking at my preferred pre-selected funds.
Example: if I want to buy HY Munis the 4 funds (NHMAX,ORNAX,OPTAX,GWMEX) are my top choices and what I have been using but I always take another look at other funds.
Investing has been my passion for years.
I do spend more if I post something that needs research, analysis and more.
===========
(link) "Stocks erased earlier losses and rose Monday, after the Federal Reserve said it would begin purchasing individual corporate bonds as part of its emerging lending program to inject liquidity into the virus-stricken economy.
Earlier in the session, the Dow was off as many as 762 points, or 3%, as investor jitters over rising coronavirus cases in key parts of the country stirred up an extension of last week’s pullback in equities."
============
My main investments are bond OEFs, will see in the next several days where markets are going

One would anticipate a minimum of a 50-100% portfolio return on an annual basis, based on the methodology.
My-oh-my.

An excellent write. Thank you, Charles, for all of your work and kindness in sharing.
ARTICLE

@FD1000
Global equity weak today (Monday, June 15) and U.S. equity market open appears to be weak. VIX trying to push above 41 again. Treasury issues happy, pre-market (Sept. contracts) 'Course, this doesn't always translate to other bond sectors; as high yield bonds may not be very happy today, nor some marginal junk corp. bonds, but.....
There must be a bond area you plan to buy, eh?
Keep us posted with your next entry/exit points, as to when and where; so that some here may participate, if they choose.

This will never happen.

@FD1000
Global equity weak today (Monday, June 15) and U.S. equity market open appears to be weak. VIX trying to push above 41 again. Treasury issues happy, pre-market (Sept. contracts) 'Course, this doesn't always translate to other bond sectors; as high yield bonds may not be very happy today, nor some marginal junk corp. bonds, but.....
There must be a bond area you plan to buy, eh?
Keep us posted with your next entry/exit points, as to when and where; so that some here may participate, if they choose.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/06/15/asia-markets-coronavirus-china-economy-currencies-in-focus.html
Japan plunges more than 3%, with stocks in Asia dropping as virus fears resurface
Stocks in Asia fell on Monday, with the Nikkei 225 in Japan dropping more than 3% while South Korea's Kospi plunged 4.76%.
The moves regionally came as as investors weighed the potential impact of recent spikes in coronavirus cases.

As I said several times before I don't follow any of these but my own rules which I started years ago preparing for retirement. Since 2018 I practiced stricter rules 1) 6+% average annually 2) SD under 3 3) never lose 3% from any last top 4) complete flexibility to do whatever I want/need. I exceeded these rules by a lot.
===============
Anyway, the thread is about bond funds so let's get back to it.
Last Thursday was another pivotal day for me. VIX jumped to almost 41, stocks crashed, the risk is elevated, rated are down sharply but BND wasn't up which is what you expect from a high rated bond index. VBTLX which is equal to BND but doesn't trade was up 0.08%. When rates decrease so much I expect bond fund like VBTLX to make more than 0.08%
All the above didn't make sense to me. Maybe it is just short term. I do the usual when the markets don't make sense to me I sell. It is unusual because in most cases I'm invested at 99+%. In the last 10 years, I was out of the market just 12 weeks (only in 5 weeks I was at 95+% in cash)
Last Thursday I was at about 50% cash and Friday at 95+% in cash. HY Munis which I had close to 60% of my portfolio were on a tear in the last month and even last week. It was time for me to sell.
YTD I'm way over my goals of 6%. I can take time out and can "miss" some performance.

+1. And I understand there are zero-coupon bonds, and bonds which pay monthly or quarterly. The div has to come from somewhere. I once owned a foreign "zero," denominated in USD, and when it paid, after 10 years, my money was nearly doubled. I recall the rate on it was about 5.68%.

Those interest payments are being spun at a cost.
Cash is cash. Principal and dividends are fungible. If I buy a bond at $103 and it pays $2 in interest (coupon) for three years until maturity, what have I really gotten? $6 in interest and a $3 loss of principal. It is any different from buying a bond at $100 that pays $1 in interest (coupon) for three years until maturity?
IMHO it's all the same, even if one feels "richer" with the $6 in interest.
Same idea with these funds. PTIAX cost $22.81 per share on Jan 2, and was worth $22.59 as of last close. It paid 32.5¢ in divs over that period of time. But like the bond, it declined in value. The net (total) return was less than one could have gotten in a bank. (But bank accounts have no upside potential.)
BTW, I love premium bonds.

Hi @MikeW. Thank you for your question. My response follows below.
The three best performers from each sleeve are as follows. Income sleeve HWHAX +5.99% ... PGBAX +5.00% ... and, LBNDX +4.86%. Hybrid Income sleeve FRINX +9.93% ... FISCX +6.71% ... and, AZNAX +5.67%..

Some people like posting narratives. I prefer hard numbers.
Start with $1,000, withdraw $40 (4% real, i.e. inflation adjusted) annually over 30 years. Do this with declining equity portfolios (e.g. 100% down to 0%) and with rising equity portfolios (e.g. 0% to 100%). Backtest against historical data, using rolling 30 year periods starting with 1900-1929, ending with 1980-2009.
Then look at the failure rates (portfolios that didn't last 30 years), and how much you'd wind up with at the end of the 30 year period.

Equity %	
(Start->End)	100->0	0->100	90->10	10->90	80->20	20->80	70->30	30->70
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Failure Rate	 8.6%   21.0%    6.2%  	17.3% 	 4.9%    11.1%   4.9%	 8.6% 
Mean 		$1,388 	$851  	$1,336	$901   	$1,283	 $954	$1,230	$1,009 
Median		  $947	$171	  $873 	$293 	  $908 	 $424 	  $951    $527

Data from Exhibit 1 in Estrada,The Retirement Glidepath: An International Perspective, The Journal of Investing (Summer 2016).

Pfau and Kitces (2014) find support for RE strategies during retirement and justify their findings with the notion of sequence of returns risk. ... [I]f large negative returns occur at the beginning of the retirement period, the portfolio is far more likely to be depleted than if the same returns occurred by the end of such period...This is a plausible argument and perhaps applies to the simulations discussed in Pfau and Kitces (2014). ... However, the support for DE [declining equity] strategies found here (at least when compared to RE [rising equity] strategies) calls into question how relevant sequence of returns risk has been empirically... In other words, however plausible in theory, sequence of returns risk does not seem to have been a key determinant of portfolio failure in this broad sample.

Big advantage for rising equity? Plausible but not borne out. Nor as noted previously do Pfau's simulations bear this out under market conditions like today's.
Way too often people go with their gut, or their fears, rather than rational analysis and cold hard numbers. That's why only about 5% of people wait until age 70 to take SS, it's part of why there's an annuity puzzle.
For those who don't want to read Estrada's complete paper, there's Larry Swedroe's page about it. He concludes:

To summarize, while Estrada presents evidence favoring the use of a DE [declining equity] glide path over a rising one, and also shows that a static 60/40 allocation is preferable to an RE [rising equity] portfolio, the most prudent strategy of all is not to “set it and forget it” with any of these options.
The most prudent approach is to adapt a strategy to actual market returns and valuations.

Hi @FD1000, While HY Minis have done good, as you note, my income sleeve is up 4.5% and my hybrid income sleeve is up 5.5% for the month. With this, it appears fixed income across the board has done well.
Cordially,
Old_Skeet

This observation is a bit late because top HY Munis(NHMAX,ORNAX,GWMEX) already made over 5.5% in the last month and I owned a huge % in them.

Call it confirmation bias, but I generally agree with Clements. At least a couple of years ago I wondered (and posted) whether low rates coupled with interest rate risk rendered the value of bonds over cash dubious. I've written favorably about Buffett's propsed allocation, 10% short term (effectively cash), 90% equities. Though I disagreed with his singleminded focus on the S&P 500. This cash/equity approach is also essentially Evensky's 1985 two bucket strategy.
Figuring on a 4% withdrawal rate, the 10% cash could buffer a bear market taking 2.5 years to recover. Clements suggests 25% cash, or around a 6 year buffer. I might split the difference and put half of that 25% in cash, half in vanilla bonds, figuring that the bonds will do better even with modestly rising interest rates, if one waits 3 years or more.
As Clements noted, the expectation value of SS is greater if one delays taking benefits. This is especially true if one is focused on one's own lifetime and not on legacies. If one has a financial need for monthly checks before age 70, one can fill the gap with a temporary life annuity.
Which brings us to annuities. Dr. Wade Pfau says much the same thing as Clements - that the lower the current interest rates, the bigger the bargain annuities are, thanks to mortality credits. "Essentially, while the cost of funding retirement with an annuity increases as interest rates decline, the cost of funding retirement in other ways increases even faster than for the annuity. Therefore, the annuity becomes a better relative deal."
Speaking of Dr. Pfau, while he and Michael Kitces suggested seven years ago that a rising glidepath might provide a slightly higher probability of success (not running out of money over 30 years), subsequent research by Dr. David M. Blanchett showed that a traditional declining glidepath would work better in an environment with low interest rates and highly valued stocks. As it was in 2015 when he wrote his paper, and as it is now.
They had an ongoing exchange about this. Here's one part:

I re-ran the analysis that Michael and I did in our initial article, but I switched to the new capital market assumptions I use which allow for increasing bond yields over time while keeping a fixed average equity premium over bonds. ... It does indeed seem that retiring at times with particularly low bond yields, which can be expected to increase over time, may not favor rising equity glidepaths during retirement. It essentially causes the retiree to lock in low bond returns and even capital losses on a bond fund as bond yields gradually increase (on average) over time.
This is not to say that rising equity glidepaths are never a good idea. ... If interest rates were at a higher initial starting point, I’m guessing that rising glidepaths would look much better in his analysis.

Hi @Derf, Thank you for your question. In responding to it ... I can review my portfolio (performance wise) through M*'s portfolio manager on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, year to date, one year, three year, five year and ten year periods. In addition, some of the things tracked are the dividend yield, valuation, % weight of portfolio, daily change, unrealized gains, duration, maturity, expense ratio, & below 52 week high, plus some other things one of them being style box assignment.